The Cold Shoulder (continued)

In which The Author gets some non-prescription pain relief

I had a couple of pints in the Glosters yesterday afternoon, then went to the Cambrian for another couple of pints. Richard Ashcroft was right: the drugs don't work. A sort-of mate of mine was very pissed and/or coked up, and I reflected that he was definitely on the list for my forthcoming Facebook cull. In fact, I announced it while he was ranting at the bar.

There's a cull coming on. I've been putting it off for a long time, but I can't delay it any longer. All you Vaguebookers, bores, drug addicts, neo-fascists, people who have added me simply to make up the numbers, and associated oxygen wasters, please enjoy the next few days of my online offerings. On Tuesday you'll be off my Friends list. Most of you will be blocked as well, so make the most of it.

After a while he stormed out, still raving about his ex-girlfriend. I drank up and headed to the Lighthouse, just before the end of Happy Hour.

I didn't intend to sing, as I've noted previously. I think my singing days are well and truly over. Even if I hadn't been in considerable pain, I probably wouldn't have been in the right frame of mind. However, I was hoping to catch up with Chazza and ask her why she'd suddenly started blanking me.

Since I didn't accept her half-arsed invitation to go to Cardiff last week, she's become decidedly cool towards me. I admit that I wasn't in the mood for company last week – I was in too much pain to be sociable – but I'd texted her the following day to apologise. She didn't even do me the courtesy of texting back. Earlier this week I messaged her on Facebook to ask her if she fancied a trip to London. Again, nothing. She must have seen my message, because she'd posted some pictures the following day. (She must have conned someone into taking her to Cardiff one evening, because there were photos of her doing karaoke in a bar down there.)

Anyway, when I got to the Lighthouse Chazza was already there, drinking with Gema, Wendy, and a young black guy I didn't recognise. Since you can count the number of black people in Aberdare's pubs on your fingers and toes, he was definitely new to the scene. In fact, simply by walking into the Lighthouse on a Thursday night, he'd increased their non-white clientele by exactly one hundred per cent (Huntley being the other one).

I bought a pint, said hi to the girls, and Chazza completely blanked me. She didn't even say hello back, which I thought was rather rude of her. In retrospect, she'd obviously found someone else who would buy her drinks and pay her attention, so she was sorted (as young people say these days).

On the subject of Things Young People Say These Days …

In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins makes an interesting observation about the transmission of information, and the way that small incremental changes will give rise to huge variations through time. He points out that a modern reader would struggle to make sense of Chaucer's poetry, even though only about twenty generations have elapsed since it was written. Prof. Dawkins says that a grandfather and a grandchild can communicate (mostly) without any hindrance, because the language they share hasn't changed to any great extent. The grandfather, in turn, could communicate perfectly adequately with his grandfather … and so forth, all the way back to 1400. And yet, even though there's an unbroken linguistic chain connecting them, a person speaking Chaucerian English would find it very difficult to converse with a modern English speaker.

Well, that's all very well, isn't it? But what the actual fuck is a modern English speaker meant to make of this:

Omg life can go ducky big toe hahaha fair play lol

I only ask, because that was what Chazza posted on Facebook at about 11 p.m. last night. English translations will be appreciated.

I must confess that I was rather rude to Gema last night. I was on the way to the bar when she tried to grab my fucked shoulder. I think she was trying to get me to dance – something I never do anyway – and I wasn't in the mood for her nonsense.

I pushed her aside and said, 'I need a pint, and I need you to get out of the fucking way.'

Then I posted another status:

Also included in the cull are pathetic young girls who can't make up their minds whether they're straight or gay, or whether they like white or black, or whether they prefer young or old and will therefore offer themselves to anything remotely human in exchange for beer and/or taxi money. I didn't imagine for more than a few minutes that I had a chance with one particular example of this business model, but she could have had the common decency not to shove her lifestyle down my throat. Then again, all my medical tests are simply showing up musculoskeletal problems, not STIs, so I'm good …

Once again, I didn't bother making my excuses before I left. I noticed Chazza kissing the black guy; then Gema kissed him a few minutes later. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that they ended up in a threesome somewhere. As I noted in 'Courting Controversy' a few years ago, young girls in Aberdare like to try and get involved in the most socially disapproved relationships possible. A threesome with a black guy would definitely be pushing the envelope.

Purely out of interest, earlier today I added up how much I'd spent on Chazza over the few weeks we'd been out singing, drinking, and sharing taxis together. If I'd kept that money aside I could have spent it on one of those ladies who advertise in phone boxes in Soho (apparently) and got my leg over. There's no fool like an old fool, is there?